Business Outlook 2017

5.3 Drilling Activity The decline in drilling activity over the last decade, particularly exploration and appraisal (E&A), has been exacerbated by the downturn. In 2016, 110 wells were drilled on the UKCS (88 development, 14 exploration and 8 appraisal) compared with 164 in 2013 (120 development, 15 exploration and 29 appraisal). This represents an overall decline of one third in just three years. Exploration and Appraisal Drilling Figure 15 overleaf shows that the exploration well count fell sharply in 2009, long before the most recent collapse in oil price, and has failed to recover since. At that time, key drivers behind the fall included the oil price collapse in 2008-09, a shortage in exploration funds, poor technical success rates, a lack of affordable and available rigs, and a lack of access to modern seismic data. The decline in oil price since 2014 has forced most E&P companies to continue to limit their exploration activity. Value generated through exploration typically takes longer to deliver a return than other areas of the business, therefore, exploration struggles to attract funding during periods of rapidly declining or low oil price. Industry instead tends to focus investment on lower risk in-fill or brownfield projects that are more likely to generate short-term returns. However, despite the ongoing challenging backdrop, there is some room for optimism. The 14 exploration wells drilled in 2016 represent the first, albeit small, increase in activity since 2012. In addition, the volumes discovered have increased with around 360 million boe of oil and gas discovered in 2016. This is more than in any year since 2008 when more than three times as many exploration wells were spudded, adding over 500 million boe of recoverable reserves from 44 exploration wells. Nevertheless, the volumes discovered in 2016 only represent about half the reserves produced (630 million boe) last year. If exploration activity does not increase further, this will lead to a significant decline in production over the longer term. The outlook for 2017 shows the potential for 16 exploration wells, although this remains highly sensitive to changes in market conditions. The UKCS holds significant resource potential that can be pursued through exploration at comparably lower risk than other basins. A number of key initiatives may help realise this potential:

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• A drive to increase cross-industry learning through the Oil and Gas Authority’s analysis of E&A wells drilled in the Moray Firth and central North Sea from 2003 to 2013.

• New insight into the UKCS’ geology from the British Geological Survey’s Palaeozoic study as part of the 21st Century Exploration Roadmap.

• Release of government-funded seismic survey data from the frontier Rockall Basin and the Mid-North Sea High regions.

• Introduction of a more flexible licensing scheme, attracting 29 applications from 24 companies in the 29th Licensing Round.

• Greater industry collaboration on self-improvement and shared learning, for example, through Oil & Gas UK's 2017 Exploration Conference. This event centred around sharing processes and case studies that support intelligent risk assessment and risk mitigation of oil and gas plays. • A strong focus on efficiency improvements. The Well Cost Reduction Initiative, supported by Oil & Gas UK’s Wells Forum, is making significant progress to halve well construction costs through application of industry good practice, operational efficiency and adoption of new technology.

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